MMOrgy: You got game? Competition vs Talent in Virtual Porn

(This article is part of a multi-part feature on the viability of
different business models for virtual world porn. Links to other
articles will be added to this one as they are finished.)

Competition in real world versus virtual world porn in an interesting
dichotomy.

Let's look at the main resource in content driven porn industries: the
model (as in, the person in the movie, not the business model, which
is also a model, but like, not a person... I'm a blogger, I don't need
a thesaurus!). In a real world porn business, models are a renewable
resource, at least, as long as we as a species keep managing to both
spawn and jack off to pictures of each other. However, each resource
is also depletable due to issues of age, amount of, er... "use",
amount of augmentation (fancy word for surgeries), so on and so forth.

One might think this different for virtual world scenarios, but a lot
of the same rules apply. First off, age does factor in, but not the
physical age of the model. Virtual models don't get old and don't die.
Hell, they can get younger if you want, just depends on what outfit
you have them in. However, the world moves at the speed of technology,
and that's where the problem with age lies. Though the models
themselves have nothing to worry about, but the second the world you
are using to produce your content patches for something like the
rendering engine, the playing field is flattened again until all of
the skin/animation/set makers can catch up with the new features.
Using anything else looks dated, and following
the expiration date theory of an earlier article in this series,
dated content in virtual worlds isn't a viable product.

Then there's the post production process, which is where the real
world and virtual world tend to come together quite a bit more.
Post-production is where you take the raw content you've filmed and
turn it into the pretty, wonderful finalized piece that you will sell
to the masses. The field here is divided by two factors, money and
creative talent (though obviously, enough of one should be able to
produce the other). In terms of money, what's needed here is hardware
and software. As money is MUCH easier to come by in real world porn
(due to pretty insane profit margins, even after 2257 compliance,
salaries, distribution, etc...), you'll find top of the line editing
equipment and software, as well as highly skilled editors, artists,
designers, and the like. After all, your content is only as good as
your touch up skills.

In virtual world porn, the same idea applies. The profit margins on
virtual porn will be scaled much farther back, so hardware will
probably be the same machine the original content was rendered on. All
the software to do basic touch up work can be found for free
(VirtualDub, GIMP, etc...), but otherwise low-end programs will most
likely be used (I'm trying to assume legitimacy here, but it's pretty
obvious most of this is going to be pirated anyways), and the
rendering engine of the content production software will be relied
upon for making things look good the first time around. That last
point also extends into the fact that most amateur virtual world porn
producers may have no idea how the post-production process should
work, leaving them to either ignore it completely and go straight from
content creation to market, or else do a mediocre job of fixing
content with what skills they have. With the massive importance of
post-production, this means anyone with a modicum of artistic or
software skill has a MASSIVE advantage the second they come into the
market.